UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Scales of Injustice for CA Incarcerated Peoples

American Indian Airwaves

Part 1 The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) is a high- level advisory body to the Economic and Social Council. The Forum was established on 28 July 2000 with the mandate to deal with indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health, and human rights. Since 2000, Indigenous peoples throughout the world have been and continue participating in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues as an international mechanism for articulating our grievances to the international, settler colonial, nation-states. From April 25th, 2022, to May 6th, 2022, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is being held at the UN headquarters in New York. This year’s theme is “Indigenous peoples, business, autonomy and the human rights principles of due diligence including free, prior and informed consent”. In the first segment of today’s program we hear excerpts from the UN Press Conference Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues held on April 25, 2022, and the call for the United Nations to launch a formal investigation into the Canadian government's role in violating the human rights of Indigenous peoples and their First Nations associated with Canada’s violent legacy of residential schools and committing acts of genocide. Guests: RoseAnne Archibald (Taykwa Tagamou Nation), the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), and the first female National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations speaking at the April 25th, 2022 press conference. Part 2: The United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other developed country. In fact, in March 2020, before many COVID-19-related releases took place, about 2.3 million people were imprisoned in state, federal, military and U.S. territory prisons; local and federal jails; juvenile and immigration detention centers; Indian Country jails; civil commitment centers and state psychiatric hospitals. In addition, before the 1970s, 100 people out of every 100,000 were incarcerated. In 2018, 655 people out of 100,000 were behind bars. Native American, American Indians, Native Hawaiians, etc., often are disproportionately incarcerated at higher rates compared to “other” populations. In some states, such South and North Dakotas, Alaska, etc., Native Americans comprise of ~10% of the state’s overall population but represent ~38% of the prison population. Nonetheless, the prison-industrial-complex system has consistently grown since early 1970s when former U.S. President Nixon declared the “War on Drugs”. In the state of California, over 5,300 mostly non-white incarcerated peoples are serving life without parole despite not committing murder. Senate Bill 300, The Sentencing Reform Act of 2021, passed the California senate in 2021, but still needs to pass the California state assembly. Tune in to hear our second guest, a long-time social justice advocate, inform listeners about the need for judicial reform in helping stop incarcerated peoples serving life without parole who never murdered anyone, but did commit misdemeanors felonies. SB 300 would provide California state judges judicial powers and discretion in stopping this human rights injustice in the California judicial system. Guest: Geri Silva, founder and coordinator of Families United to End Life Without Parole (FUEL).